Introduction
“When God builds a church, the devil builds a chapel next door,” these words from Martin Luther can help us ask ourselves some questions: Can we spread the messages of VVED while ignoring the presence of the devil? Perhaps we do not see the devil with the naked eye and our human efforts and intelligence are enough, is this a reason to ignore him? Isn’t he already this unpleasant companion who intrudes into our lives, even without permission? Perhaps we give it a prominent place in our lives by rebelling against God and practicing the occult. To meditate on the eschatological moment or the end of time is to reflect deeply on the spiritual battle we are waging until the last day when the Lord God will definitively separate the Light from the Darkness.
The proclamation of the Kingdom of God requires today’s apostle to look closely at what was at the heart of Jesus’ ministry, the purpose of the miracles he performed among his people: the salvation of man. His public life can be summed up in the following expression: teaching, healing and liberating so that the Kingdom of God may come. Jesus taught in the synagogues, healed every disease and every infirmity of men (Mt 4:23), he delivered the possessed from unclean spirits. Healing the sick and delivering the possessed were necessary activities of Jesus’ public life. This mission was entrusted to the apostles: “As you go along, proclaim that the kingdom of heaven is at hand. Heal the sick, raise the dead, cleanse the lepers, cast out demons” (Mt 10:1-7). By asking his apostles to heal the sick in his name, Jesus initiates them into his own ministry of proclaiming the Kingdom of God. How can we proclaim the Kingdom in a world undergoing profound socio-political changes? Can we grasp the messages of the VVED in our societies at risk of decay? 1. La VVED : des messages pour guérir et libérer les enfants de Dieu.
1. The TLIG: Messages for the healing and liberation of God’s children
If the purpose of Jesus’ miracles is human salvation, the purpose of the True Life in God messages is an invitation to live in love and unity in Jesus Christ. Today, the Lord invites us to fight against all forms of darkness in a world immersed in sin. The difficulties we face present the face of a suffering world. That is why Vassula notes the following: “As it is, the world today is immersed in sin and perversion, and these sins attract calamities, epidemics, wars and natural disasters. In recent years, the world has not stopped provoking God’s justice. Since the beginning of time, God has chosen his messengers or prophets from among weak beings. Vassula is one of the weak figures that Jesus also chose to announce in this apocalyptic moment the mercy of God, to heal and liberate man from the hold of the enemy, for the salvation of souls open to divine grace. His mission consists in telling the world that mercy is manifested in the presence of the Holy Spirit whose power raises up “ambassadors and prophets (… reminding the world of God’s existence”.
Our Lord Jesus Christ reveals to Vassula that the world must rely on the Holy Spirit to fight against the darkness of our time. This darkness is thickening because the pastors and dignitaries of his Church are leading a sinful life. He begs them to “repent and make peace with one another by unifying the dates of Easter and achieving unity. (…) in their unbelief they have rejected Christ. Christ has turned his back on them. Their self-righteous pride and self-sufficiency stifle the Spirit. Christ’s messages to Vassula denounce the unbelief and obstinacy of today’s pastors, just as the disciples doubted the resurrection of Jesus. These messages reveal that plagues and calamities are striking the world at the risk of the decay and destruction of our society. Are we living in the last times? As a prophetess of our time, Vassula carries the voice of the Lord who insists on conversion, the fight against the activities of darkness, the demons. Thus the Lord declares: “…turn to Me, your God, and repent…fasting will drive out the demons…”.
Today, humanity is languishing under the weight of pandemics. Scientific research can be carried out, partial solutions found, but humanity runs other risks insofar as it wants to realize itself without God: “The real danger to life is not the threat of death, but the wrong choice to live without God”. In other words, the fear of God allows to contain plagues and calamities: “Call on his name and he will hear you, help you and heal you”. Authentic healing is God’s work.
God’s work is to heal and free man from physical, mental and spiritual diseases. Unbelief invades the heart of man to the point of doubting the Voice of the Lord through the messages of VVED. Vassula expresses this suffering in these words: “The Lord has asked me to make His messages known throughout the world. I have done my best, as have the co-workers who have been chosen by our Lord. There have been results, but not as much as the Lord wanted, because of the accumulation of slanders, defamations and persecutions to which these divine messages have been subjected from various sources, thus limiting their diffusion… Our unbelief has not done us any good.
2. Prayer for repentance, healing and deliverance
Healing and deliverance are also central to the True Life in God messages. In the message of November 13, 2006, the Lord inspires Vassula to pray a prayer of repentance, healing and deliverance. This one should be recited with a sincere heart:
« Lord, you have endured me all these years with my sins,
but nonetheless You pitied me;
I was led astray in every way, but now I will sin no more;
I have wronged You and I have been unjust; I will be so, no more;
I renounce sin, I renounce the Devil, I renounce iniquity that stains my soul;
free my soul from all that is against Your holiness;
I entreat You, Lord, to rescue me from all evil;
Come Jesus now, come now and abide in my heart;
Forgive me, Lord, and allow me to rest in You,
For You are my Shield, my Redeemer and my Light and in You do I trust;
From today I will bless You Lord at all times;
I repudiate evil and all other gods and idols,
for You are the Most High over the world, far transcending all other gods;
By Your mighty arm, rescue me from ill health,
rescue me from being a captive,
rescue me from trouble and defeat my enemy the Devil;
come quickly to my help O Saviour! » Amen.
This prayer aims at helping man to renounce Satan, that is, all forms of deities or idols. Spiritual warfare is a struggle against the deviations of the heart of the obsessed, oppressed or possessed man. If mankind thinks that the golden rule is to do to others what you don’t want done to you, the message points to a new golden rule of the Christian: “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul and with all your strength. The relentless pursuit of honor and wealth debases our hearts. Today, man has become a captive of the evil one. The promise of the prayer of deliverance is to save man from captivity, ill health and attacks of the devil.
Jesus’ hymn to his friend Vassula in April 1995 presents us with his determination “to gather all the peoples of the earth and to teach them”. Healing the sick and freeing them from demonic attacks is not the end of Jesus’ mission, but the means for the salvation of humanity. From then on, man’s salvation begins on earth where he experiences God’s consolation: “The Lord comes from his holy dwelling place to comfort his people and strengthen his Church”. To comfort his people, the Lord promises to “rest in your hearts” and is determined to surround man with songs of deliverance. Christ’s gaze is fixed on auspicious people and his crown is placed on them, people who will help to realize the project of unity. It is a project that heals and reunites the separate houses, confessing One God in Jesus Christ:
“My house will be one; the Western House and the Eastern House will live as one because My Name will be their bond, clothed with perfect peace, integrity and love; My New Name will be the royal insignia between these two Houses… It will happen soon and in your time, so don’t say, ‘the Lord is taking His time again’.
The world needs to be freed from demonic spirits because they lead them to failure, decay, etc. The Lord hates his plan to free man from the enemy (Satan), from two beasts and from demonic spirits (Rev.13:1-18;16:13-14). Indeed, some Christians live under the influence of evil by leaving the door of their heart open. They are victims of these spiritual entities that debase human life. These include the spirits of unbelief, impurity, etc. These spirits exist as entities whose names reflect almost all human defects or difficulties. Jesus communicates this message to Vassula to show the danger that demonic spirits represent by pointing out that they are “leaders of destruction…who lead the whole world into their abject world, drunk with the blood of the saints and of all those who witness to My (Christ’s) Divinity.”
Jesus explains to Vassula Satan’s plan through these diabolical spirits and invites man not to fear: “To complete their work of destruction and to crown it with success, they will have to remove the Chair of Peter and the one who sits in it; their aim is to destroy My Church… but do not be afraid, I have promised that the gates of hell will never hold against it (Mt 16:18). Jesus indeed shows that “the leaders of destruction, shining with their titles of learning, are filthy and their stench has now covered the whole world.
The end times message confirms the final victory of the Lamb of God:
“…I am the Lord of lords and the King of kings; and Heaven, together with all the saints, apostles and prophets, will celebrate their fall. I will appear on a white horse, as a fighter of justice, and I will render judgment for all My saints, apostles and prophets, against the dragon, the Beast, the false prophet aka the second Beast and the three foul spirits, and with my sword I will strike each one of them, and the towers they have built will crumble; these are all the followers of the two Beasts, under the name of Erudites! like thorns cut off, they have now penetrated My body, but I will pull out every one of them and burn them in the fire, and My breath will devour the rest of them like fire…”.
In this context, the eschatological vision is not only an expression of a future victory, but a reality that both houses will experience here on earth as they open themselves to unity in Christ.
The message of March 23, 1988 draws the reader’s attention to the devil’s malice. He makes man believe that he does not exist, and yet he is at work, seeking to destroy man’s life: “Creation, beware of the devil, for he is redoubling his efforts to ensnare you and, in the meantime, he makes it seem as if he does not exist, so that he can maneuver without being feared…”. Today, man confronts his own unbelief by opposing God. He believes more in the power of Satan than in that of God. He is blinded by his own rationality, nourishing in himself the fear of the gods against the Fear of the Lord: “This generation is hard to bend; weakened by their sins, they (men) put their trust in Satan, building their hope in him; although I stood before each one to see Me, few paid attention; their leaders became cruel…”
3. “I am present and My power heals and saves!”
On June 1, 2002, the Lord Jesus said to Vassula, “…to recognize Me is truly the perfect virtue; to know My power is the root of immortality…I am present and My power heals and saves, but look at the world today: very few people respond to grace, and they have not taken refuge in Me, Yahweh…The world does not call upon My Holy Name; this generation refuses to walk with Me.” The refusal of the precepts of Jesus leads man to his own downfall and despair reigns in the hearts of people. Now, the devil uses stratagems to destroy man: discouragement, despair, fear, indifference, unbelief. He aims to steal what belongs to man, to destroy him and to kill him. To fight against these three objectives of the devil, Vassula writes that we must not ignore that “hell also exists”. She advises us, in her 2010 speech here in Rhodes, to lower ourselves to the level of the ground and to annihilate ourselves so that God’s favor may come upon us. Thus, “we must never cease to test and examine ourselves, for by trusting in our own self-importance and self-love, we risk moving away from God and into the dark regions of the devil. Indeed, when we are inspired by God’s humility, we are inflicting a slap in the face of Satan.
When Christ lives in us, “we immediately appear on the devil’s radar. The Christian is not the property of the devil, even though at times a part of his being may be infested by the wicked. One could say that the Christian is possessed by Christ because he is his private property; the devil can attack him from different angles of life. The devil’s trick is to make man believe that he does not exist. Modern man does not hesitate to say that this is an obsolete, medieval idea or a kind of superstition. When we cling to God, we receive a supernatural strength that protects us against the enemy’s pitfalls. Certainly, we are strengthened by the power of the Holy Spirit. This does not mean that the demons perpetually go away from us. He is always ready to attack. Vassula writes: “When the soul becomes stronger and closer to God and more united with God t